I cannot answer your question. I can give one perspective.
My older daughter was a very talented musician in youth through high school. She had a sign on the wall of her bedroom that said “music = life”. She played piano and guitar, sang (including taking voice lessons), and wrote songs. She had a bit of a fan base, which definitely included me.
At some point a relative who is a professor of music introduced us to a friend of his who had been a singer and dancer on Broadway – yes she was that good. She had discovered that New York is an expensive place to live and being a singer on Broadway does not pay very well, and you get tired of playing the same music every day. She had gone back to university, gotten her PhD in vocal music, and become a professor in the same program as my relative. After this conversation my daughter went on a musical tour of Europe. She loved the music. She was not as fond of the travel and the rigid schedules, and eventually she also got tired of the songs they were playing.
Since that point my daughter has been neglecting her music to focus on academics. I actually said to one father at my daughter’s high school graduation party that I might be the only father in the world who found this frustrating. He said “oh no, I feel the exact same way”. It turned out (I did not know this until later) that he was the father of someone who was in my daughter’s high school a cappella group. Regardless my daughter has been neglecting her music since that point, now for about a decade. She is on track to graduate next May as a veterinary doctor (DVM), which she also loves and is drawn to. She still plays guitar and sings, but her electric keyboard right now is sitting about ten feet from me and about 2,000 miles from where she lives and studies. I have promised to get it or an equivalent keyboard to her when she gets her first full time job after graduation in May. She intends to get back to music after she has completed her studies and has a bit more time and energy.
I work in high tech. There is a significant overlap between music, mathematics, and high tech skills. I have multiple times seen someone I know from high tech get up on stage and play music, and usually play very well. I have also gotten up on stage a few times myself, and apparently did not embarrass myself.
So I guess that one option is to find something else for a career, and do the music because you love it. Two people who I mentioned above instead have found a career as professors of music.
The relative who is a professor of music tries to have the “what do you intend to do for a career” talk at least once with each of his students. A very wide range of answers emerge. He teaches in an area where there are some farms, and where university is affordable for the children of farmers (this is neither a private university nor in the USA). A few students have said “I am here for four years whether I graduate or not, then I help my father on his farm, then he retires and it becomes my farm”. One student was not very good at either performance nor the more academic side of music. My relative asked “what do you like to do”. The response “I help my friends fix their musical instruments”. This one former student is now making a living repairing musical instruments. Some students do something not related to music for a career, and do music because they love it. A few become professors of music. A very small number become performers.
I wonder whether the question that you are asking about is just trying to get students to think about this issue.